No Such Thing
By J. Reyome
September-October 2009
It is a beautiful night, and life is
sweet.
Our family have just returned from
trick-or-treating, and now we are all in the basement of our home gathered
around the television set, on which is playing the Tod Browning version of Dracula, an old favorite of ours. The
twins are on the rug sorting their Halloween swag, while our youngest, Sunny,
is sprawled across the laps of my wife and I. To me it looks as if the child
should be uncomfortable, she is twisted so, but she doesn’t seem to mind. My
left leg is falling asleep beneath her, but I endure it as cheerily as a good
father should.
Joanne, my wife, catches my eye. She is
staring with those dark, dark eyes of hers, a brown so thick as to be
chocolate, dark chocolate, mixed with tiny pale-blue flecks of what must be
mint. They are amazing.
She smiles, rubs my leg. I must've been
fidgeting. "Sunny, be a dear and let your Daddy have his leg back,"
she says to our daughter.
Sunny yawns, sits up, and smiles sleepily
up at me. She is a gorgeous little girl, not quite four years old, and she
seems to have been blessed with the best features of both Joanne and I. The
eyes of her mother, my chin and mouth, Joanne's fine, high cheekbones, and the vividly
blonde hair of my youth. I expect she will go grey prematurely as did I, and
when she does, she will be even more amazing to look at with a full head of
silver hair, much as her mother looked when I first met her.
The swelling music of the film catches her
attention and she looks away, only to look back a moment later. She says
something I don't catch at first. I ask her to repeat it, and as soon as she
does, I wish that she hadn't.
What she said, in her ordinarily charming
four year old chirp, was, "Da,
s'dere reely bampize?" Which translates from toddler as, Da (for she calls me "Da") is there really vampires?
My blood runs cold, and the memories of a
night just seven years previous return.
It was raining in Springville that night.
Of course, I didn't know it at the time; it had been gorgeous when I'd gone
underground. It was one of those wonderful fall days you just wish would last
forever, China-blue skies dotted with cotton wool cumulous, temperatures in the
mid to high 80s. Oh, it was a bit humid, but that was okay; it gave me that
much more incentive to get my ass underground rather than go to the town park
courts and play basketball, which was my other obsession back in the day. Hoops
and caving. Basketball was the reason I'd come to southern
But I digress. To begin at the beginning,
we had found a cave, the "we" being myself and Trey Neary, my
roommate, landlord, and best friend, and we called it called it Hollering
Heaton's Horror Hole, or 4H Cave. 4H was a small opening in a shallow sinkhole
on the property of one Zeb Heaton, who'd told us he'd shouted into it once and
heard an echo but was too scared to crawl in, thus the grandiose name. We
checked it, and found that it produced a large plume of steam on cold mornings,
pretty much a guarantee that there was something cavernous down there somewhere.
But it required some labor before it would pay off…the sinkhole obviously took
in a lot of water, and over the centuries a lot of dirt had washed into the
opening. Trey and I were reasonably certain there was a sizeable cave inside,
but we would have to dig for it.
Now, it is a long process, digging out a
cave. Working conditions are dirty, tight and miserable—despite the chill
breeze, it is so humid, you can’t work but a few minutes before you are
drenched in sweat. If you work in pairs, you have someone to haul out the
tailings, but alone, which was usually how we worked, you have to do it
yourself and it takes forever. Still, we made steady progress, and over the
course of a month's efforts we managed to push forward exactly 214 grueling
feet.
You think of a lot of things when you are
doing such awful, otherwise mindless work alone. Probably it crosses your mind from
time to time that there's always a chance you might be squarshed by some great
slab of limestone that might come free, pulverizing your head, or torso, or
whatever; usually when that sort of thought came over me, I would conclude
something patently obvious like, yes,
that would really suck, and then I would keep digging. Mostly though, I
thought about how miserable I was.
Personally, I mean. Not in the hole. The
digging I did purely because I had nothing else to do, and besides, it was
entertaining in a loopy sort of way. No, what I mused on was how pathetic my life
had become, in that spending endless hours troweling out mud was the height of
my existence. Oh, caving was okay, and I really enjoyed it, but occasionally
one must surface, and that's when the problems would come to the forefront.
My Dad is a pretty smart guy, and he had told
me once, "You can't spend your life playing pickup basketball and crawling
around in caves. Eventually you're going to have to decide what to do with the
rest of your life." And he was right, of course. I sure couldn't have gone
on long the way things were. It wasn’t so much that money was always tight
(though it certainly was) more than the boredom and the solitude. I didn't have
any close friends besides Trey, and he was a psycho by anyone's standards. I
probably wasn't any different from any other guy my age, but I was desperately
lonely…the girls at IU weren't any different that they had been in at home:
they knew a likely loser when they saw one, and they tended to shy away
whenever I appeared. That I was older than them didn't help, and that I looked older only made it worse. And the
more depressed I got, the worse I looked, because I wasn't taking care of
myself very well. Okay, at all.
It was the purest of coincidences that the
caving took me in something of a constructive direction. Mostly for our own
amusement Trey and I did a fairly comprehensive abstract on the area in which we
had been working, and one evening we ended up presenting it at an IUSC (that’s
IU Spelunking Club, if you’re keeping score at home) meeting. To our immense
surprise, once the club officers realized we were serious about what we'd been
doing, they actually accepted us into their confidence, turning us on to a
couple of locations even we hadn't considered. That didn't mean we shared everything with them; 4H remained a
closely guarded secret.
The new alliances we formed did have some
interesting results though, not the least of which was that people would
actually speak to us at meetings. Another was that I was, errr, invited, to change my major to from
English to Hydrology, which I was only too happy to do, as I was becoming bored
of English. Now, anything ending in ‘ology’ was bound to be a sort of a strange
major for me, as I have never been very scientifically inclined, but it was so
intertwined with caving that it was already something of a hobby with me, and
as it was, I had a graduate thesis pretty much underway. Besides, it suited me.
I couldn't see any downside, except maybe that jobs are even more scarce for
hydrologists than they are for English majors. Still, I made the move, and I
didn't regret it. I still don't.
Anyway. Trey kept on with the digging at
4H. He was maniacal about it, and had pushed through a crushingly tight bedrock
squeeze at the end of our dig into what looked like going cave beyond…good news,
except that he told me, almost smugly, that it was too tight for me. Not being
keen on finding out just how tight it
was, I decided my best option would be hiking the land to the west of Zeb
Heaton’s place, looking for something, anything, that might be an easier way
into the cave we guessed had to be draining this area. It wouldn’t be much fun,
walking overland with no promise of finding anything, but this was all in the
name of Science, which still had some meaning to us, so I checked out a GPS
from the club stash (another nice perk to membership) and I got busy. And right
away I struck paydirt.
Oh, it was a long walk, to be sure. I
could hardly have imagined a more obscure location: deep in the woods, so remote
that as I worked my way down a gentle slope into a perfectly secluded valley
that I left a trail—bits of flagging tape tied to tree limbs—behind me so I
could find my way back. Eventually I worked myself through a final dense
thicket into a clearing in which stood a rambling sort of house. It wasn't in
disrepair, but it didn't exactly look lived-in either. Still, there were power
and phone lines going to it, and as I walked up I noted the wheel in the meter
box revolving. Slowly, but it was moving. Something in there was using power.
I tried the front door, politely at first
and then progressively more firmly when I didn't get a response. Finally I gave
up and went to the back door and repeated the process…with the same result. As
I walked around the building, I noted that the basement windows appeared to be
either incredibly dirty, or they were painted black, and from the inside.
Funny.
So. Somebody lived there, and they owned a
car—I could see it through the filthy windows of the garage attached to the
house—but if they were at home, they weren't answering the door. And they were
fanatics for privacy. I understood that well enough. I had to…when you live in
a house with seven other guys and share a room with somebody like Trey Leary,
you learn to knock, and you hope they do too. Not that I'd ever had an instance
to require that kind of solitude, but Trey certainly had, and I'd caught a
couple a couple of the others at less than their best. Such is college life
when you're barely able to afford your books, let alone your 14.2 percent of
the rent. Oh, and food.
I gave up looking for the resident and
decided instead to have a look around. The USGS topo map I carried showed a
sinking stream in the vicinity, so I figured that was as good a place as any to
start. And finish, as it turned out. It's usually not so simple, but I guess I
lucked out: I walked right to it from the house, and right away I knew I had
something of substance. It was a narrow crevice penetrating a dry creekbed
which was scoured by repeated washings of floodwater, a lot of which appeared
to have poured straight down into the very crevice into which I was peering. It
looked very active and very flood-prone…nothing I wanted to be messing with
during rainy season, but this was fall, not normally a season we tend to see
much rain. I soon donned my denim jacket, gloves, and helmet and was happily clambering
down into the hole.
It was awkward but not overly tight. What
did give me pause was the drop to the floor below…I let myself down three times
before I felt sure enough I'd be able to get back out before I touched down.
When I finally got my cave eyes and looked
around, I was perfectly tickled. I'd entered just to the side of a stream
passage perhaps fifteen feet across and eight feet high at its largest. The
water was about six inches to a foot high and mostly lay in an incised channel
on the floor. It wasn’t the great roaring river all cavers hope to find, but it
was a flowing stream nonetheless, and with plenty of evidence of greater flow
during periods of high water. In fact, there was organic debris stuck in cracks
on the ceiling, so the passage probably filled completely during heavy rains. I
sure didn't want to be there to confirm it. As far as I knew it was virgin, and
as such, it was a pretty important discovery.
Now…where was I? I figured I’d walked
about a mile and a half from the 4H entrance. If the two were connected, it
would be a pretty good-sized cave right off the bat. So I headed upstream, in
what I figured was the general direction of 4H. A thousand feet, then two…the
ceiling height lowering gradually as I went on till I was walking stooped.
Another thousand feet. Now it was starting to get obnoxious. It was too high to
crawl but too low to stoop. Figuring I might be close enough that Trey might
hear me, I called his name. If he was still working he might be nearby
somewhere.
There was no response, but then the
passage had branched several times, and the connection to 4H, if there was
there one, could be in any one of the connecting passages. I turned around,
retraced my steps to the entrance, and then ran downstream at least another
thousand feet, and the passage got bigger, and bigger, and bigger…and then it wasn't fair to call it merely a passage, it was
gargantuan in scale, bigger than anything I'd seen in my short caving career.
The enormous room in which I turned around, in fact, looked like it could
swallow the whole of Assembly Hall, and still have room for a practice court.
Or two. I still thought a lot in hoops terms then, you see. It was astonishing.
Basketball quickly lost its status.
Discoveries like this don't come often, I am told, and I was overwhelmed. In
fact, I hardly remember making my way back to the entrance, and I certainly
don't remember singing in joy as I climbed out. But later, I was told that I
had…
I suppose it was understandable. I do
recall that as I sat on the dry bed collecting my thoughts and catching my
breath, I could hardly contain a grin. I looked back down into the maw of the
cave, shaking my head.
The sun had gone down. That was a
surprise. I couldn't have imagined I'd been in the cave that long, but, time
flies, I guess, and that's pretty much what I was thinking when I realized that
I was being watched.
Even now I can't describe what I heard,
and I wondered later if I had just imagined it all. But I was sure I at least felt the presence of something near,
something that was watching me. Not threatening, not approaching, but watching.
From where, I couldn't be sure; every time I felt like I had a fix on a
direction, I would look, and just as promptly I would sense something from
another tangent, something that wasn't…natural?
If not natural, then unnatural. Certainly not human, fish or fowl, mammal, amphibian. It
definitely gave me a serious case of the creeps, and more for my own
reassurance, I called out: "Is someone there?"
If someone was, they didn't feel inclined to reply.
"I'm not
here to do anything but explore this cave," I explained nervously,
pointing into the hole, "and I'm done now, so I'll be on my way…thank you
for allowing me to be here, and I hope you'll let me come back again."
Again, I had no idea who or what I was addressing, but I figured being polite
couldn't hurt.
It wasn't far back to the road, and I made
haste too. When I got there I found Trey waiting at the appointed spot…fast
asleep. I had to hammer on the window to wake him. When he finally let me in,
he allowed as to the fact that he'd been waiting for nearly three hours and
what the hell had took me so long. I told him I'd been looking for a better way
into the cave. And apparently we'd need it too: it seems that he'd arrived at
the entrance to 4H and found it mostly refilled with washed-in silt from rains
the past week. Some of it was easily passed, he insisted, but the worst of it
would have to be re-dug, which would, at least for me, mean re-excavating all of it. Not good news.
Oh well. That wasn't so crucial now so far
as I was concerned. I kept my news from him for the time being. He'd been smugly
secretive regarding the progress of his exploration in 4H beyond the bedrock
squeeze, so I figured it would be more than okay for me to return the favor. We
drove back to
Between the GPS and my flagged trail I walked
right to the cave and, leaving the GPS in the crook of a tree, I promptly made
my way upstream where I'd planned to spend several hours waiting for Trey to
come through, occasionally hollering to see if I could get him to respond,
wherever he might be. Naturally, it didn't work out quite that way. We'd both
been cramming for finals and neither of us was at our best. Eventually I fell
asleep after a couple of hours, curled up on a mud bank like it was a feather
bed.
I woke about four hours later, and even
then only because I was half submerged in water. Warm water, which meant it was
pouring in from the surface.
This was bad, very bad. The passage
between me and the entrance was low in places, and the water was high and
swift. On the plus side, I was going with the flow, but were I to be swept
downstream past the entrance…well, I didn't want to find out how that ended. I
made very sure that when I thought I was within a hundred meters of the crack
in the ceiling that I placed my steps very, very carefully. Even so, when I
finally did get there, I damned near blew right past it, because darkness had
fallen on the surface in the meantime, making the narrow opening that much
harder to spot. I saw it just in time and somehow managed to heave myself out
and onto a dry bed that was anything but. Imagine forcing yourself up a swirling drain, and you've got a
pretty good idea what it was like. When I dragged myself up onto the bank I was
thoroughly soaked. Clean, but drenched, like I'd been just been through a rinse
cycle. Exhausted too, and minus my pack, which I'd abandoned in the passage
below; I just didn't think it was so important as I was trying to shove myself
up that crack. Funny how your priorities change when you figure you're about to
die…the contents of that pack were worth a few hundred dollars. But I did
remember to retrieve the GPS, and thanked my lucky stars that I didn't have to
pay to replace that.
Still, the pack had contained my car keys and
my cell phone. The latter was pre-pay, of course, the only kind I could afford
to carry; it could be replaced. So could the keys, but that wasn't much
consolation on the long, cold walk back to the parking spot. And if Trey wasn't
there waiting for me…what what I do then?
Naturally, he wasn't, and I stood there
next to the road for a long time, teeth chattering—it had grown very cold—and
weighed my options. I could wait, risking hypothermia, or I could see if I
could locate a house in the area and see if they'd let me make a call, perhaps
to Trey's cell, if nothing else letting him know I'd surfaced. Or I could walk
back to 4H and see if he was still there, maybe his car had failed to start. That
wasn't entirely unheard of.
Or…
I didn't want to think of the possibility
of Trey still being in 4H. That would be bad, very bad. The passage was tight,
and probably it funneled water in from a fairly large surface area. The weather
hadn't looked bad at all when we'd split up, so surely he'd gone to the face of
the dig and had set himself up for a long day's work, just as I had. Maybe he'd
fallen asleep just like me, and if he had, his chances of getting out were
infinitely worse than mine might've been.
So there really was only one option. I had
to go to the closest house, and that happened to be that of the probable owner
of the dry-bed entrance. I would call Trey's number, and if he didn't answer,
I'd call the house, and if he wasn't there,
then I would call Cave Rescue, for what would likely be a body recovery…
So that was why I knocked so vigorously on
the door of the house when I finally did make my way there in what had become a
driving rainstorm. It was epic, and chances were I would've loved it had I not
been so much a part of it…the rain was coming down in sheets so thick they were
like impenetrable ebony curtains flecked with quicksilver. I had no light but
the mini-Mag I kept around my neck on a lanyard, and that wasn't much good in
this kind of torrent, but holding it was at least a small comfort as lightning
crashed around me.
I hammered on the front door several
minutes before reluctantly giving up the shelter of the awning to try around the
back. I got no answer there either, but by now my dread had reached
newly-plumbed depths and I was preparing to knock out a pane of glass in the
door and try and force my way in. That was when I chanced to look down and
spied a key that water rushing out a downspout had forced from its hiding place
beneath a large rock next to the stoop. I picked it up, tried it in the lock,
and was relieved to find that it worked and a moment later I was standing,
dripping, in what my light revealed to be one of the dirtiest kitchens I'd ever
stepped into.
Dirty. Now, I ought to define that. I
don't mean dirty as in, dishes everywhere, bugs, trash, discarded fast-food
wrappers, that sort of thing. Rather like the kitchen I shared at the house.
No, the room in which I stood might've been pristine but for an accumulation of
dust that had to be seen to be believed, and I'm talking what appeared to be several
decades' worth. But that wasn't so important, not to me, not just then…especially
when I began to feel that unseen stare again.
"Hello?" I called nervously.
"I'm sorry, I don’t want to do anything but use your phone." I'd seen
the wires the other day, remember, so I figured there was at least a
connection, and power as well, so hopefully…"That's all I want," I
shouted, "just to use the phone, I swear. I'll leave as soon as I make my
call." I wanted to make my intentions clear, lest somebody be standing
behind a door with a shotgun. Hey, this is rural
The phone didn't hold out much promise,
being one of the old rotary-dial type, but it emitted a reassuring dial tone
when I picked it up, so I dialed Trey's cell number and stood there for a
moment, growing more apprehensive with each ring he didn't pick up…until,
finally, he did.
Trey always did have a flair for using
swear words creatively, and he was in rare form now. He graphically described
what it was like to be a turd trying to work its way out of a
constantly-flushing commode. "Because that's what it was like," he
insisted. "I about didn't make it out of there. There was so much water
coming in, the last hundred feet was pretty much a dive."
Ghastly stuff. Worse than what I'd been
through, and I told him so. "But we're both okay. That's the important
part."
"Maybe," he said morosely,
"but we're probably never going to get to see where all that water's going."
I grinned. "Maybe. Or maybe not. I
may have found something. If we're lucky, we may even have permission by then.
I hope so, anyway. I'm in the house right now."
"No kidding! What are they
like?"
"Don't know, I haven't seen anybody
yet. It's awful dusty, but the phone works. You going to come out this way and
get me?"
He laughed. "Yeah, right. Listen, we
got a couple of problems here. First, the car's hosed. Literally. Popped a
radiator hose. Me and Mark are working on it, but it'll be a while." A
couple of caver friends lived in Springville and ran a takeaway pizza place.
"Then, the road's mostly impassable between you and Springville. I managed
to walk here to the Pizza Barn. If you start right now, you might get here
before they close." There was a pause, then some obvious sounds of
chewing. Obviously he was being fed. Also, he was probably warm, and if need
be, he had somewhere to spend the night. I found myself hating him very, very
profoundly.
My stomach growled right about then. "You're
a prince, Trey," I remarked sourly.
"Uh huh. Kristi said she'll save you
some pizza. Might be cold though."
And that was that. The connection dropped.
Evidently I had been dismissed. I gently hung up the phone.
And then I froze. I'd heard a click when I
hung up the phone, but it wasn't the gentle snick
of a receiver being laid on a cradle. No, this was more like a hammer being
cocked. It was followed quickly by another sinister ‘clack’.
Very, very slowly I raised my hands.
"All I wanted was to use the
phone," I said in as non-menacing a tone as I could muster. "I'll
leave right now."
"And how do I know you won't come
back?"
A woman's voice. And it didn't sound at
all frightened, not nearly as frightened as I was.
I figured being forthright might be the
best tack. "Well, honestly, I'd like
to come back, to visit your cave. I've come by before hoping someone was at
home. This is the first time I've ever found anyone."
"I don't own a cave."
"If your property includes the dry
stream bed just west of this house, yes, you do. A pretty impressive one
too."
There was a moment of silence, then I
heard her sigh. It didn't sound exasperated at all, or even relieved. Resigned,
maybe, in retrospect, considering what she said next. "I suppose I won't
be shed of you anytime soon then. Keep your hands up and turn around, please. I
want to see what I'm dealing with."
Of course I complied. I found myself
looking, dimly, at rather an attractive, if pale lady, I guessed maybe in
mid-to-late forties, possibly early fifties. Her hair was very light and
long...it was either very blonde or very gray, in the dim light I couldn't tell
which. Apart from that, the only thing I could clearly see was that she wearing
a Hoosiers Basketball t-shirt, of which I nodded approvingly. "I hoped I'd
play for them someday, you know," I said, trying to make pleasant
conversation. She still had the gun leveled on me, after all.
"Never you mind that," she said
in an annoyed tone. "I want you to clean up the mess you're making on my
floor."
My voice must've betrayed my surprise.
"Ma'am, much as I do appreciate you not ventilating me, I think anything I
might do to clean your floor would be like putting lipstick on a pig, if you
know what I mean."
That was when she raised the shotgun and
took aim. "That's bold talk for somebody with two barrels pointing at
him."
"And if you pull that trigger, you'll
get a face full of stock, the way you're holding it," I pointed out.
"If you want me to leave, I'll go, and if you don't want anyone to come
back, well, we won't. Nobody knows anything about that cave but me, and I can
make sure nobody ever does."
Slowly she lowered the shotgun. "I
heard what you said,” she murmured with a welcome note of concern. “Was it as
bad as all that out there?"
"The cave or the rain?"
She shrugged. "Both, I guess."
I nodded. "They were both pretty bad.
I'm glad to be dry, at any rate."
"Well, you're not. Maybe you ought to
come downstairs and get into some dry clothes."
Her face didn't betray any ulterior
motives. Besides, I was cold and she knew it. And perhaps accepting her
hospitality would be a good 'in' for future trips. "Well, that's fine.
Great," I said. "Point the way."
Her weapon in a safe position, she ushered
me down a flight of stone steps which soon turned into wood, which in turn led
onto a surprisingly spacious and wide hardwood floor.
Spacious, wide, and…clean. Spotlessly
clean, as clean as the upstairs had been dirty. "You live down here,"
I observed brightly, looking around.
"You didn't think I lived up there, did you?" She motioned to my
left. "The shower is in there. Toss your clothes in the bin and I'll run
them through the wash if you like." I was about to protest when she held
up a pale hand. "No, don't. It's the least I can do for pointing a shotgun
at you." She smiled shyly. "In the meantime I'll get you something
you can wear till they're done."
I didn't figure on this sort of
hospitality, but then I wasn't exactly in any place to refuse it, and even if I
had been I wouldn't have been inclined. I thanked her and went in to the
shower, which was bathroom, which was clean, warm, and well-appointed, with a
shower that was of the walk-in variety and thus a complete delight. Mind you, a
hose and a sprayer would've been acceptable as cold as I was. So I stood and I
soaked for several minutes, and I enjoyed the warmth and the wonderful, soapy
smell of the space, which I computed as warm vanilla with just the faintest
hint of woman…
…and then I felt the weight of the eyes
again. The same feeling I'd felt upstairs, the same I'd felt the other day
sitting in the cave entrance. Like I was being watched—no, stared at—by something,
I couldn't tell who or what, or whether the intent was sinister or benign or
merely curious. But somehow I knew I was being observed. I didn't sense any
hostility, so I figured there was nothing to do but finish what I was doing and
get out.
I hadn't heard her enter or leave, but
when I came out of the shower I found a robe and a pair of terry lounge pants
folded neatly on the commode. They certainly hadn't been there when I went in
to the shower. What's more, they were warm, like they'd just come out of the
dryer. They smelled good too, that faintly vanilla scent that seemed to pervade
the place. It was…well, nice, and more than a bit evocative…I could close my
eyes and imagine walking hand in hand with someone (her, perhaps?) through
sunny fields…blowing dandelions and watching their seeds scatter as dragonflies
hummed past busily…
Like I said, evocative. But the reverie
didn't last long. The room was chilly, even coming out of a hot shower, so I
dried off and donned the clothes quickly and walked outside, the cold floor
making me wish she'd remembered socks too.
She had, apparently, because just then she
was placing a pair on the coffee table in front of the leather sofa that
dominated the room. "Sorry," she said hastily. "I remembered
everything else. I just hope it all fits. You're about Toni's size."
"Please, there's no need to
apologize," I replied gratefully. "I'm just happy to be warm and dry.
It's pretty awful out there, and it's even worse underground."
She smiled. "I'd glad you're
okay." She sat and patted a place on the sofa next to her. "Here.
I've got a kettle on for some cocoa, or tea if you'd like."
I sat beside her. Apparently she'd changed
while I was in the shower, and now she was in a white peignoir, something
billowy and wonderful. She was close too, perhaps a bit too close for my
liking. It wasn't as if she were unattractive—quite the opposite, in fact—but I
have always been socially awkward. Besides, I didn't even know her name yet,
though she promptly solved that little dilemma by introducing herself.
"I'm Joanne Heaton," she said, holding out her hand.
I took it. It seemed small and rather
cold, but I guessed that was what one got living in a basement. "I'm Mark,
Mark Allyn. Are you any kin to Zeb Heaton?"
"Zebulon? Why, he's my…my
Uncle." She instantly went from pleased to uncomfortable and back, and I
was sure she had mouthed, my brother,
before abruptly changing tack. "He's a character, isn't he? How has he
been? I haven't seen him in years."
That was strange too. Why would she live
so close, a stone's throw, and not see her Uncle? And funny, Zeb hadn't
mentioned having any kin nearby.
Still, she been a perfect host so far, and
I had no reason to doubt her. Better, she didn't come off as pushy or
threatening…a far cry from your average cave owner in southern
"Well, between you, you own quite a
big cave," I told her, changing the topic. "It may be the largest
around here, and that would be saying a lot." I described what I'd seen,
comparing it to the likes of beautiful Shiloh Cave, massive Sullivan, long and
wet Blue Springs, even Lost River, which was likely the longest cave in the
state. "But you never know," I told her. "For all I know it
could end around the next bend past that last big room I was in." I
shivered involuntarily. "I reckon it's a good thing I didn't go any
farther. I might not have gotten back."
"Are you sure you're all right?"
she asked. "You didn't get hurt or anything down there, did you?" It
was sweet, now she seemed genuinely concerned. Typical woman, I figured, hot to
cold to warm in nothing flat.
"Oh, I got beat up a little bit. Not
any more than usual. Some bruises, some cuts. But that happens when you go
caving."
She stood as a faint whine indicated her
kettle had boiled. "Just a minute, Mark. Tea or cocoa?"
"Whatever you're having is
fine."
She left and came back with two steaming
mugs. "I thought cocoa would be more appropriate. It is Halloween, after all, and I don't get many trick-or-treaters."
She laughed, but it was a humorless sound. "I don't get any trick-or-treaters, actually, unless
they come to soap my windows or write nasty words on the house." And for a
moment she looked angry, and then it turned to a peculiar sadness. Then that
look vanished, veiled by a smile that made her look years younger.
Funny. I'd guessed she was in her
mid-to-late forties, but the more I looked, I realized I was wrong. She was
probably closer to forty, maybe more but not by much. Also, she was pretty,
prettier than I might've guessed from a distance.
The contrast led to conflict. She was
probably not the sort of woman I would be seen with, or perhaps would be seen
with me would be putting it better.
She was…well, elegant would be the
best word I could think of. Refined, perhaps. Glamorous. Well above my station
at any rate, pleasant to look at and delightful to be near. Oh, and she smelled
good too, the same smell I'd noticed on the robe. Nice.
I will try to describe her as I saw her
then. She was slender; not gaunt, but there was no excess flesh on her, not
that I could see, and what I could see was nicely shaped. Her skin was pale,
yes, almost ivory, but it didn't look unnatural, at least in the light of the
room. And her hair was not blonde, nor was it gray. It was silver. I would like to repeat that so it's not mistaken: that is silver, not gray or white. It was
amazing, really. I'd never seen the likes, before or since. I might've thought
she was albino but for that, and that she didn’t have the pinkish eye color
either, the irises being instead of a marvelous shade of gray. The combination
of her hair and eyes and admittedly pale complexion combined with her almost
regal bearing made her a striking woman to look at, and for the first time in
my life I found myself utterly smitten, to the point of foolishness.
With something of an awestruck tone I told
her, "I hope this doesn't offend you, and don't take this the wrong way,
but I think you're the most amazing-looking woman I have ever met." I tend
to say foolish things when I am overcome, and I was nothing if not overcome by
her.
But she indulged me with a warm smile and
laid a cool hand on my own. "What way should
I take a statement like that, Mark?" Her gaze went down to our hands and
then back at me. "No, don't answer. I know, I'm unusual. It's all to do
with my condition. I’m subject to photoallergic dermatoses. It’s genetic, but
only certain members of the…family, as it were, are affected by it. Ultimately
what it means is that I'm hyper-sensitive to the sun and I don't go out much
during the day and not at all unless I'm completely covered. If I’m exposed at
all…” She shuddered. “It can get quite ugly. How it affects pigmentation, I
don’t know. The hair, I'm not so sure of that, but it may be a recessive gene.
Funny, isn't it?"
"I'm not sure about funny. Tragic,
I'd say. How do you deal with it?"
Her hand was still on mine, I noticed. Or,
I should say, I noticed when she started to stroke my hand gently.
"I don't leave here often," she
said softly, looking down at our hands. "Not during the day. When I do,
it's only because I have to. You can only do so much shopping after dark. I
rely on Toni—Anton, he calls himself now—to help me out with that." There
was a less-than-faint disdain in the last sentence. "My husband. Or
rather, ex-husband. We've
been…separated for some time. There were never any papers filed, but as far as
I'm concerned, he's no longer interested in me." She raised her hand from
mine, motioned around us, then it returned to its stroking. "He provides
me with this. That's something, I suppose. And he…supports me, so to
speak." She looked at me curiously. "When I first saw you, I thought
maybe he'd sent you. You don't know him, do you?"
"I don't know any Antons," I
told her. "Or Tonys, besides Soprano, and the pizza company. And my
brother-in-law, but somehow I don't think we'd be talking about the same
guy."
"Surely not," she said with a
smile. "But it wouldn't be the first time Anton's sent someone here. He
tries to…what do they say these days, set me up?"
I nodded. "Like a blind date."
She laughed dryly. "I suppose you
could call it that. So, when I saw you, I thought that's what you were here
for." Again her hand left mine, this time to motion toward the windows.
"I have to have them blacked out, for obvious reasons. But there's just
enough of a peephole on each side that I can look out in just about every
direction." She sighed. "You looked like you were enjoying yourself.
I wanted to call to you, but…" Now her hands raised in the air in a
gesture of futile wanting. "I so wish I could go outside, feel what it's
like to be warm again." Her eyes
began to glisten. "I wasn't always like this, Mark. When I was
younger…"
She leaned toward me, and, as
uncomfortable as I was, I didn't have the heart to refuse her an embrace. It
was pitiful, the situation she was in, and I reckon my own solitary nature
wasn't a whole lot different, except that my solitude was self-enforced.
Cold. She was cold. I held her tighter,
and she molded herself to me. It was disturbingly comfortable, and it would've
been appealing except for her chill, and for my hesitancy. She was quite a bit older than me, after
all, and I knew nothing about her. Except, of course, that she'd taken me in
from out of the cold and damp, let me use her shower, dressed me in her
husband's robe, and had my own clothes in the washer. This wasn't something
that happened every day.
"You're so…so…warm," she
murmured, her lips against my neck, evoking a river of gooseflesh that started
at the back of my neck and quickly spread over the rest of my body. "I
don't care why you're here, Mark, but I'm glad you came." She sighed
again, and her breath was a moist, chill puff against my chest. "Would you
stay a while? Please?"
"I…I can't think of anywhere I have
to be," I said, adding, "And I can't imagine anywhere nicer to spend
an evening, or finer company."
Her face, pressed to my chest, formed a
happy smile. "Thank you," she said softly. "Thank you so very
much. You don't know how much this means."
I think maybe I do, I thought, smiling.
It was a delightful evening. We sat and
watched monster movies, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, and finally the original
Tod Browning version of Dracula—it was Halloween,
after all—and munched popcorn and sipped cocoa and later, a glass of wine. And
we talked and talked. I don't know when I've ever had such a good time, and
before the night was over, I had pretty much decided that she was the most
wonderful person it'd even been my good fortune to meet. And I was looking at
her differently, not so much as a host but as, perhaps, someone I might, ummm, see socially, as my Mom used to quaintly
say. Sure, Joanne was older than me, significantly even, but so what? And
wasn’t it funny that, the longer I was around her, the younger she looked?
We ended up discussing the finer points of
the Universal creatures. I professed my fondness for the Wolf Man. She laughed
and told me I was predictably male. "It's the 'lone wolf' thing," she
asserted. You men all think alike. You claim you crave solitude. Well, let me
tell you something Mark, and this is a fact: most of you wouldn't last a day
without a woman to keep you in harness. Believe me, you are not Lawrence Talbot, or his alter
ego."
"Really?" I snickered, but good-naturedly.
"Which one am I, then?"
She smiled. "Oh, you have some wolf
in you, to be sure. But I see you more as the Frankenstein creature. Big,
strong, good-hearted, misunderstood.” She squeezed my hand gently. “And that's
all you really want, is someone who understands you, and can love you for what
you are."
I was flabbergasted, but I tried not to
show it. She had pretty much nailed me shut, right there. "All right then,
so which are you?"
She watched the screen. Right about then,
Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula was stalking Lucy Weston (Westenra in the book,
but never mind) as played by Frances Dade. "I think I'd be a female
version of the Count," she declared. "Or maybe more like Gloria
Holden in Dracula’s Daughter, only without the creepy
outfits. I would be a very stylish vampire. I would be both irresistible and
beautiful."
I had to admit that she knew her horror
flicks. As for the irresistibly beautiful part, well, I thought she was already
at least that, and to her delight I told her so. “But vampires are evil,” I added,
“and I just can’t see you as evil.”
“What makes you think they have to be evil? Maybe they’re just like
you…misunderstood.”
“I suppose,” I allowed, “but look. See
what he’s doing?" I pointed to the screen, where the Count was about to
take a bite out of the doomed Lucy. "He’s going after the babe. You’d
think that if he had a conscience, he’d be, oh, I don’t know, picking out
people past their prime, or killing animals or something. It just seems
so…immoral.”
She burst out laughing. “Immoral! Oh, that’s
rich! Be honest with me, my Mark.” There was an odd edge to her mirth, but it
was muted by her naming me her
Mark…that did not pass unnoticed. “If you were in his place, what would you
do?” She pointed to the screen. “Would you settle for a deer, or a rabbit, or a
skunk? Or would you nibble Lucy’s neck? If it were me, I know what I’d do. I’d find the choicest, sweetest
neck I could find, and I would positively go to town.” She leaned into me
provocatively. “And might I add, dah-ling,
that you have an amazingly attractive neck?”
I think that I blushed at that. “No I
don’t.”
“Oh, but you do.” And she proved she was
serious…by kissing said neck, and letting her tongue linger on it, long enough
to raise another wave of gooseflesh. Seeing me shudder, she gave a throaty
chuckle of delight. “Oh Mark,” she sighed, “I’m so pleased you’re comfortable
around me. I know it must be awkward.”
Well, it hadn’t been, but now it was…but
in the nicest possible way. “It’s not so bad, believe me,” I said. “It’s not
exactly as if I was real high on the dating list for IU coeds.”
“They don’t know what they’re missing. I
don’t know that I’ve been so happy to be near someone in years.”
I wondered, just who would she have to
compare me to? Her ex-husband, I supposed, but the more I heard of him, the
less I liked him. She’d told me he’d left her for a younger woman. I told her
that snow on the roof didn’t mean there wasn’t a fire in the hearth, and she’d
giggled and kissed me again. Already this one evening I’d had more kissing than
I’d had in the past five years. And I had to admit, I liked it.
So I said to her, “Where have you been all
my life, Joanne Heaton? You are an amazing lady, and I’m truly fortunate to
have found you.”
Her response was to hug me so tightly, I
thought she might break a rib on one or the other of us.
“But listen,” I added, shivering, “I don’t
want to kill the mood or anything, but I’m awfully cold. And it’s getting late.
Maybe I ought to head home and sit in a bath a while. I could come back
tomorrow, if you have some free time…maybe…”
She looked up at me, her uncanny gray eyes
wide. “Maybe?”
I thought it over. It was strange, this
whole situation, but at the same time, I couldn’t exactly deny what I was
feeling. And yes, things had happened with amazing rapidity, and yes, she was
older…though, strangely, now the difference seemed even less pronounced. Or
maybe I was just seeing her through different eyes. Eyes that cared.
Cared. Yes. Maybe that was it. Maybe I
actually cared about somebody.
She was still staring at me though, and
now I noticed the little flecks of blue intermingled with the gray, a light,
almost sky blue, as vivid a blue as the gray they swam in was itself striking.
“Maybe…?” she prompted again.
“Well, I thought that maybe…I mean, if you
wanted to, I mean…I could…come by after dark, pick you up…I have a car…well,
such as it is…” I hated to have anyone see my old Cavalier, it stuttered and
stammered worse than I was right now, “…but maybe…maybe we could go out, I
could take you out for dinner, maybe see a movie…?” I let my voice trail off,
which was probably a good thing, as I was starting to sound a little silly
about then.
“That’s very sweet,” she murmured. “But
Mark, you’re here right now. I would
love to fix you dinner. Or, perhaps, breakfast…?” She stood, held out a hand.
“And if you’re cold, why, I believe I can help you with that, too…”
It was amazing, really. I couldn’t help
but shake my head, and it wasn’t just because I was feeling euphoric—though I
was, oddly so—but because this was the sort of thing that happened to somebody
else, not me. I never really thought that I deserved it. I mean, what had I
done to inspire this? Except maybe to show up at her door…?
She seemed to read my mind. “Oh Mark,” she
sighed, “my Mark, that you could just walk into my life…it must have been Fate.
Or maybe the Gods are smiling on me.” She took my other hand, gently pulled me
to my feet. “You are a very beautiful man, Mark. I am the fortunate one.”
Well, what could I say to that? I couldn’t
think of anything, so I just smiled as she reached behind her and turned on
some music. "Do you dance?" she said softly, turning back to me.
"Please tell me you dance, Mark. Even if you don't, tell me you do."
I shrugged. "Well, I've always wanted
to learn the polka," I said with a smile, hoping that would satisfy her. I
liked dancing well enough, but I can barely keep out of my own way.
Surprise! She gave an excited little jump.
"Polka!" she cried. "I love
to Polka! That's the dance of love, you know." She winked at me. "Why
Mark, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying to get on my good side.
But later, perhaps." Then she looped my arms around her, put her own
around my neck, and we danced about the only way I know how, the gentle
side-to-side sway of a couple at their first prom.
The music…well, it was a quietly desperate
piece, a woman despairing for a lost love, only to accept that her lot was,
"just the way it is". It was sad, and faintly reminiscent of her
life, and, truth told, my own.
But now, that had all changed, hadn't it?
So suddenly, so wonderfully…
…and so cold…
"Joanne," I said softly,
"really, can we turn up the heat a little, maybe light a fire?"
No, I really said that. This is how
clueless I was…still am, I suppose, that it was only in retrospect that it
occurred to me how ludicrously double-entendre that must’ve sounded. But the
fact was, I was cold, colder than I
had been in the cave, colder than I'd been in any cave, colder even than I'd been last time I'd ridden a
motorcycle during a snowstorm and managed to sink myself dangerously into
hypothermia. And this was a deeper chill, a bone-deep cold, which was somewhat
ironic in that not too long ago it had been Joanne who'd been chilled. And
wasn't that odd, that she seemed warm
now. And not just in that one way either.
It was no surprise that she took the cue,
intended or otherwise. "Oh, I can turn up the heat, Mark," she
whispered huskily. "Oh, yes I can."
"No, listen, I'm really, really
cold." I wasn't a fool. I knew what she had in mind…or, at least I thought
I did. "I feel like I'm taking a chill or something…"
In response, she pulled herself closer to
me. "It's all right, Mark. It's all right. I'll make you warm."
And now I was starting to shake.
"Joanne, I'd like nothing more than to…" I managed to suppress a
shiver, but only with the greatest of effort. "I just don't think I'd be
able to…you know, perform…I'm so cold…"
That was when she put her hand—her warm hand—inside the robe I was wearing.
"He doesn't seem to be in
agreement, Mark," she murmured. There was no coyness to the tone, no
teasing; if anything, there was perhaps a trace of urgency.
Besides, it was true. Chilled or no,
Mister Happy was very happy indeed.
She leaned up, kissed my lips, her tongue
darting in and out of my mouth. "Mark, it's right. Admit it. I know how alone you are. I am too. But tonight…if
never again…if only this once…"
"No…not just tonight…" I really didn’t
want this to be a one-night stand, nor did I want her to think I did. But I was
so cold…so cold…and she was so warm…
She drew me across the room, through a
doorway, into another room, her room. She switched on the light, led me to the
bed, sat me down. "Stay here," she said softly. "I'll bring
light."
She left, leaving the light on just long
enough for me to get a quickly look around. The windows were heavily shuttered
and curtained, the walls covered with nature prints, most of which involved
sunshiny skies and trees…how sad, I thought, the only way she gets to see
things like that is in the dark…
No mirrors though. Odd, that was odd…it
wasn't as if I was a keen observer of women, but I'd never been in a woman's bedroom
that didn't have at least one mirror. Even my own room had a mirror. And all those
nature prints were all matte-framed. There wasn't a reflection to be seen
anywhere.
And soon there wasn't much light either. Joanne
returned a moment later with a pair of candles, turning off the overhead and
closing the door as she entered. She stood for just a moment, beaming happily down
at me, and as I looked at her, I swear, I wondered if maybe my earlier
guesstimates as to her age hadn't been completely wonky. Now she looked barely
forty, if not younger. Even as she approached I marveled that the crow's
feet—laugh-lines, I called them when they appeared on my own face—seemed to
have completely disappeared, and the skin on her arms had lost its parchment
appearance. Amazing, what a little attention will do, I thought.
She set the candles on either side of the
bed, then she returned to me, laid me down, and covered me with a thick
comforter. "Listen to me," she murmured, sitting on the edge of the
bed. "I want you to know something before we…before I start."
I nodded. I felt a little warmer. Not
much, but the shaking had stopped, at least.
"I…I've been watching you. From the
first day you came here, I've been watching you. Out the peepholes, as much as
I could. I saw you that first day, I heard you singing when you thought nobody
could hear. I heard, Mark. And I
watched, and when you left I prayed that you'd come back. When you did, I knew
that I had to meet you. I couldn't have dreamed it would end up like
this."
I smiled. "I'm glad it did."
She kissed me. "As am I, my Mark. Do
you feel warmer now?"
"Not a whole lot," I admitted,
but I was pretty far past caring by now.
"Don't worry." She slipped off
her peignoir. "You will." Another kiss. "You will." Again.
"And soon, my Mark. Soon."
She slid under the comforter with me.
So it began.
A long time passed, how long I can't even
begin to guess, I was so beyond any concept of time as anything but an abstract
construct that didn't really have any meaning. It was…beyond any puny
descriptive powers I might possess. Beyond adjectives, beyond superlatives. It
transcended the physical and crossed the line into the spiritual. My head spun
with it all, a magnificent giddiness that surpassed anything I'd ever known.
Above it all, one thought reigned supreme: I
must have this woman, at any and all cost.
I loved her, completely and utterly. That
was really all there was to it.
I tried to tell her. Really, I did. But
each time she seemed to anticipate it, covering my mouth with a kiss, taking my
breath away with another caress, stealing my will with another impossible
maneuver that would leave me trembling. Her touch was intoxicating, a hand held
out from heaven, beckoning me onward, and if heaven it was—or hell, it didn’t
really matter—I was ready to dwell there forever.
Now, I ought to note that my actual
participation in all of this was pretty much limited to what she would allow me
to do, which frankly, wasn't much. I just didn't want any impression getting
across that anything I was doing was somehow eliciting this sort of behavior.
It was all Joanne, all the time.
But that was just fine with me. Like I
said, I loved her now, and I was prepared for anything.
Anything…except…
Probably I should've seen it coming. You have, haven’t you? The eyes that
followed me everywhere, her almost ghostly pallor, her "photoallergic
dermatoses", the weird transference of my body heat to her, the sudden
restoration of her youth. The almost mesmeric eyes. And the absence of mirrors.
That alone should've been a dead giveaway, no pun intended, and I mean that.
So no, I wasn't exactly ready when she
pinned my shoulders to the bed again, looked down at me with an immense sadness
on her face and tears welling from her eyes, and said, "Oh Mark, I'm so
sorry, so sorry…"
"No, don’t be," I panted,
breathless, "don't be, Joanne, I understand."
"No Mark, you don't," she
sobbed, "you can't."
Her eyes were huge in her face now, and
were locked on my own. I couldn't have looked away, even if I'd wanted to…which
I certainly did not.
The blue flecks in the irises seemed to be
dancing now, doing something of an ocular polka, fascinating to watch. I lay
back, smiled, held in thrall for what seemed like hours and waited for whatever
would come next.
What came was—then, anyway—a surprise. She
rested her warm, warm body on mine, fastened her lips to my neck, began to
suck.
A hickey? I thought blearily. Never got a
hickey before, always wondered what one felt like…
I heard, rather than felt, the bite. The
sound, the odd sensation of sharp canines piercing flesh, tissue, cartilage.
The rushing thrum of blood being drawn from an artery.
And it was at this point I finally
realized what you've known for quite some time:
Joanne Heaton was a vampire.
I was her intended victim.
This is what I thought of as I lay there,
listening to the sound of my life being drained from me. Was I really a victim?
I actually argued with myself in a detached sort of way. How could I be a victim? I mean, the word implies
that I was her prey, and that may or
may not have been true, but it also might indicate that I was likely unwilling.
Unwilling?
Really?
I'd let her lead me here. Oh, I suppose
her eyes had cast some sort of spell,
whatever. Under their influence I'd have likely gone along with anything she
suggested.
Or, maybe…maybe I really did love her. And it didn't matter what
she was.
In the ghastly course of her feeding, she
must have lost her odd ability to read my thoughts. Either way, she sure didn't
see what was coming next. And what came next was my gasping her name, urging
her to take it all.
All? All of me? Had I really said that?
Oh, I had, and oh, she'd heard. And it got
her attention, that did. "Oh Mark," she cried in despair, sitting
bolt upright, her mouth bright red with my blood, "do you know what you've just done?" She sounded positively
frantic.
Well, if I remember my vampire lore—and I
do—one thing you're warned is to never, ever invite one in your door, because that
invitation gives them the power to walk in and out any time they choose. Or so
goes the mythology as I understood it. So, by interpretation and extension,
telling a vampire to take it all as
much as comprises an invitation to not merely have a little tidbit or even a
late-night snack, but to drain the victim (that word again, misused, I insisted
to myself) entirely.
Her hand rested on my cheek, and her
question was repeated. "Do you know,
Mark? Do you understand?"
I had often imagined the circumstances
under which I would speak the next words which passed my lips. I suppose I
always figured it would be at my wedding, whenever and with whomever that
might’ve taken place…and funny, wasn't it, that I was thinking in past tense?
But the more I considered it—and believe
me, I had the time—I thought that this was nothing if not a marriage.
Different, yes, but not so vastly different, and the words were spoken with no
less passion, and really, no more permanent intent.
So I meant it, then, when I told Joanne:
"I do." Understand, that
is. Yes, I knew exactly what I'd said, and what the implications would be. But
I also meant it in that other way…as in, to
have and to hold…till death…
And now, at the end, she knew exactly what
I'd meant. She shook her head, her cascading hair swirling about my face like a
silvery brook in flood. "Oh Mark…" she cried, then she moaned pitifully,
her tears dropping gently onto my face, little puddles of warmth on skin that
had gone corpse-cold.
"All of it," I whispered.
"All of me, Joanne. I…love you."
She uttered a cry of despair, a keening
wail of grief that echoed through my head long after her mouth had returned to
its feeding, and my consciousness slipped away, my last conscious thoughts
being of that smell…mmm, vanilla…
I was alone.
Lost in a forest. A forest of snowy trees.
Snowy trees bathed in a brilliant, unearthly luminescence.
Alone…but not alone. There was something…
…and then I was pursued, running, bounding
through snow-covered grass, cold, so very cold, darting from the half-shadows
of trees, looking behind me, around me, below and above me, looking for…what?
Pursued. Captured. Held.
I fought. Oh, how I fought. Vainly.
Pinned. I was pinned. Like a butterfly in
someone's collection, pinned out on the snow, a bright white sun above me…eyes,
eyes swimming out of the light, noises I didn't recognize at first eventually
coalescing into rational speech, words I could finally grasp, understand,
respond to.
It wasn't a forest, then. It was a
hospital. I wasn't pinned, I'd been restrained. I'd been fighting them, it
seemed. I had swam in and out of consciousness a few times, but only now did I
really come back to myself. So I answered the inevitable questions, and then
asked one myself: I was Markus Raymond Allyn, called Mark, I lived on
And the answer to that was, no. I hadn’t a
clue. Not the faintest idea. In fact, I didn’t remember a whole lot of anything.
I knew it had something to do with a cave, but that was about all I could come
up with. Eventually it occurred to me to ask them what they knew, but that wasn’t much help either…apparently some unknown
someone had dropped me off at the Emergency Room just before dawn one morning
and just that quickly peeled away. A dark-colored Mercedes, or some such
European car, they said. I wasn’t hurt badly, but I was a couple of quarts low…on
blood, so low that I was barely
alive. It was a near thing, they said. Never have I been so grateful to have
been a Red Cross donor.
They ended up running the usual battery of
tests on me, and they asked me a lot of uncomfortable questions before finally
turning me loose, at least as soon as they were sure that the oddly clean bite
marks on my neck weren’t infected or rabid, my blood count was more or less
back to normal, and I didn’t have a screw loose. They weren’t really convinced
on that last score, but I did manage to escape anyway, following profuse
promises to visit the psychologist to which they’d referred me. Something about
recovering memories. I wasn’t so sure I was interested in that sort of thing.
I called Trey, who picked me up and drove
me to the county impound lot, where I retrieved my car. Trey had a lot of
questions I couldn’t answer either, but at least he was (for a change)
good-natured about the whole thing, and he even talked the folks at the lot
into turning loose of my car sans the
usual storage fee. “He’s been in the fargin’ hospital, dude,” he ranted, only
he didn’t say 'fargin’', if you know what I mean and I’m sure you do. I’m still
amazed we got out of there with our freedom, never mind our cars. Trey could be
like that.
From there…well, I had some unfinished
business, I knew. What exactly that business was, I still had no idea, but I at
least had some clues: Trey had refreshed my memory of what we’d been doing at
4H and roughly where it was. That part I remembered. The rest? Gone, like a
freshly-erased chalkboard.
Except…like the metaphoric blackboard,
there were faint traces left behind…faint, but discernable in time. I
remembered a house in the woods…somewhere. Eyes, eyes I couldn’t see, watching
me. A faintly lit darkness, cold, so cold…and a smell, something wonderfully
pleasant. No faces, no names, no locations. Not much to go on, but it was a
start, and perhaps the shrink wasn’t such a bad idea at that. Probably it was a
good thing I hadn’t mentioned any of this to the nice folks at BRMC though, as they
probably would’ve insisted I stay a while longer, perhaps until I recovered my
memory, and who knew how long that
might be?
It wasn’t till I finally went through the
bag of personal belongings I’d brought home from the hospital that I found the
key that would unlock the first chest of memories: a GPS. Not mine, I didn’t
have that kind of dough. No, this belonged to IUSC, or at least that’s what the
label on the back read. It was no great shock to find I couldn’t remember how
to work it, but an hour or two of experimentation later I managed to pry a couple
of waypoints from it that didn’t match anything on any of my topographic maps,
something even Trey didn’t know about. And they were in the general vicinity of
4H.
It wasn’t much, but it was all I had, so I
got in my car and drove in the direction the little widget pointed me, which
turned out to be south of Bloomington to Springville, and then west along
winding country roads that didn’t look at all familiar, between stands of big
trees and over rolling hills and around sinkholes. Typical southern
But what could I do? The little strings of
numbers, the flags on the LCD display, they were all I had. So I followed them,
and eventually I discovered that one of them was apparently for a parking spot,
about a half mile overland from the second marker. I parked the car, got out,
and found a faintly flagged trail that was obviously of my own making leading into
the woods. I followed it with an even mixture of curiosity and dread to the dry
bed of a creek, and then to a cave entrance in it.
Things began to click into place. I sat on
the edge of the narrow crevice leading downward, my head in my hands, trying to
collect what bits of memory were whipping about my brainpan. It was difficult,
with that feeling of eyes…
…eyes. Yes. The invisible, all-seeing
eyes, watching me.
Eyes. A cave. A forest. That meant there
had to be a house somewhere. I crept around the area, looking for any faint
sign of a footpath heading anywhere other than toward the road. It took a
while, but finally I found it, and followed it to a clearing, where I found the
house, the sight of which activated still more memories, memories that told me
it would be pointless to knock on the front door, or any door, in fact, until sunset. So I waited, with those eyes
watching me, in the chill November afternoon, my legs dangling back in that
dark well, and my mind awash with possibilities, most of which were unpleasant.
And finally, when the sun had only just dipped below the horizon, I returned to
the house and made ready to knock on the back door.
Except that it opened from within before
my knuckles ever touched wood. And standing on the other side was an
extraordinarily lovely woman, whose silver hair and staggering gray eyes took
my breath away…and returned my memories to me, in a flood so abrupt that I
staggered off of the stoop and sat down, lest I fall.
When I finally managed to collect myself,
I stood again and looked at the woman who would be my greatest love through the
screen door. The look on her face was forlorn and afraid…afraid of me.
Her name, blessedly, had returned. "Joanne,"
I said quietly.
She stepped back from the door.
"Don't go," I called. "I
don't want to hurt you."
"Hurt me?" came her grim but sad response in a soft, breathy tone.
"You can't hurt me, Mark. But I
can most certainly hurt you, and once the sun goes down completely, you won't
have any way to escape me. Go, now!"
The last two words were a blend of a
lupine growl faintly underlain with infinite sorrow. "I don't want to
escape you," I pleaded. "I want to help you."
She stepped back to the screen, appearing
like a wraith faintly visible beyond the pale. "You can't help me either,"
she murmured. "I am beyond your help. But I…I thank you for your offer,
and for…your…nourishment…I…"
And then, she staggered out the door and fell,
sobbing, into my arms.
I held her, stroked her silver hair, whispered
calming words into her ear. The night had fallen, wrapping us in velvety blackness
long before she was composed enough to finally whisper, "I'm so sorry,
Mark. So sorry. I couldn't help myself…it had been so long…so long…"
"That's enough of that," I said
firmly. "You don't have to apologize for what you are. Do you remember
what I told you that night, Joanne? I do,” those words again, “and I meant it.
You could have taken me, and I
would've been perfectly content in it. And if you still do, well, that's all
right too. But let's talk a while first. Maybe we can think of a way out."
“There is no way out…no way out…no way…”
And she repeated that on and on as she clung to me as I walked her into the
house and down the stairs into her apartment. Once there, we sat on the sofa,
she still clutching me and crying but without tears now, because they'd all
been spent. There was a little additional time before she was finally ready to
talk, and when she did, it wasn't what I wanted to hear her say.
"Mark, I want you to kill me,"
is what she said.
"Out of the question," I told
her when I'd recovered from the shock.
"No, Mark. It's what you must do. If you don't, then I will have to…take you." She laid a
hand on my cheek. "Which is not to say that it wouldn't be pleasant for
you. It would."
Of that I was sure. I felt a pleasant
twitch in my loins at her touch.
"But I couldn't. I couldn't. I couldn't
because…because I love you, my Mark, and I could never forgive myself if I were
to kill the man I loved."
"And who loves you," I reminded
her. "You know that, don't you?"
She smiled through eyes that were again
becoming moist. "Yes, my Mark, I know. As you must know that it could
never happen, and why." She detached herself from me and walked across the
room to a lampstand, pulled open a drawer on it, and extracted a very
old-looking pistol. Bringing it back, she offered it to me. "Here,"
she said bravely. "This is all you need."
I looked at her askance. "That's not
what I've read."
"Don't believe everything you read. Shoot
me and I'll die, just like any other human being. But you must be exact…it has
to be in the head, and it has to destroy the brain."
"What, like in a zombie flick?"
"Precisely. All of that business
about stakes in the heart is nonsense. The heart is only a pump. The brain is
the seat of function. Destroy that, and we're done. We…heal very quickly
otherwise."
I took the weapon from her. It was old, how old I couldn't even begin
to guess. "I don't know, Joanne," I told her. "This thing is
pretty old. When was the last time you fired it?"
"Fired it? Never." She hung her
head. "I tried, Mark, I did, I swear. But there is something…some awful
instinct of self-preservation, something that even trumps morality and
guilt." She sat back down beside me and shook her head. "I couldn't,
Mark. Whatever it is made me what I am, it won't let me."
"And I'm glad of it." I kissed
her and stroked her face. "So forget it, I won't do it. There's got to be
another way out of this." I looked at the pistol. "Where did you get
this thing? It looks like it'd be worth more as an antique than as
self-defense." Or self-destruction, but I didn't say that.
"From Anton. Or Toni, or whatever
he's calling himself these days. He gave it to me for protection." She
laughed bitterly. "As though I somehow needed it. What I needed was protection
from him. But of course, I was too
blind, or perhaps too smitten." And she told me how as a thirty-three year
old widow she'd met a young Polish immigrant named Anton “Toni” Wlodya at a
town dance, of the (dubious) plans for the future they'd made together…and how
later that night he'd initiated her into the ranks of the undead. "The
worst part of it," she concluded, "was that in the end, when I was in
his arms, looking up at him and seeing those fangs, I knew what was about to
happen, though I didn't have any real concept of what a vampire was…I still
knew…and I welcomed it."
"Well, I understand that part, at
least," I said consolingly. "But you know you never really had a choice."
"Maybe. Maybe you're right. Or…maybe
not, Mark. Did you? When you told me
to take all of you, did you know what you were saying?"
It was a fair question, but I knew the
answer. "Yes. Yes, I did."
"But…why?"
I looked down at her hands, still so pale,
but now soft, smooth, and warm. “Because I love you."
Her eyes filled with tears again. "Oh
Mark, you don't know…you don't know me, what I've done…"
"I love you," I repeated,
"and the past doesn't matter. What happened, whatever you are or might be,
that doesn’t change anything, not as far as I’m concerned.” I looked back to her
lovely, grieving face. “Because that’s what someone who loves you does, they
accept you as you are.”
“And that doesn't make this…" her
breath gave a little hitch, "doesn't make it…any easier to take." And
she began to cry again.
With little else to do, I just held her
and let her wring herself out, and when finally she did, I held her hands and
said, “Look, what if I were to kill him?
Anton? If I killed him, broke the line of succession, if you will…wouldn’t that
free you? It does in all the stories I’ve ever read.”
She gave me a tolerating smile. “Those
same stories tell you I’d turn to dust in direct sunlight, don’t they?”
“You mean you wouldn’t?”
Finally, a laugh, but it wasn’t without
some bitterness. “Oh no, nothing so melodramatic. I’d burn, yes. And I suppose
eventually I'd turn to dust. But it would take a long time, and I can’t tell
you how much it hurts. Believe me, I have
tried to go out, Mark.” She sighed. “I so miss being able to run through
the woods. I love them. They were my only consolation when my first love died
in the Great War. I know the crevice you went into, and there was many a time I
stared into it myself, wondering what was at the bottom.”
“We’ll explore it together then, you and
I.” I smiled at her. “That’s the beauty of caving, you know. It could be the
official sport of vampires.”
She kissed me fondly, her lips salty from
her tears. “And would we be caught in a storm and flushed from the cave as you
were? Clouds don’t even slow down the rays that would slowly, horribly kill me.
It only takes once to learn the lesson, and it was taught to me a long, long
time ago.”
“We will
explore it together,” I repeated, “once you’re set free.” I hefted the pistol.
“I’ll take this thing, make it work, and take care of Anton, and then…”
“But Mark, if you do that, then won’t I
age? I’m quite old, you know.” She made a face. “I look like I do now because I
fed. That restores me, to a point. Not as much as if I had…well, you know.”
“Taken all of me.”
She nodded. “I’d have stayed as I was
rather than kill you.”
“And I’d take you at age…” I tried to do
the math, eventually deciding it would be inappropriate, in the extreme.
“Whatever that age is. I don’t care. If it comes down to my taking care of you
for the rest of your life, I’ll do that.”
She sighed and leaned into me, her face
easing comfortably (for her, not so for me) where the stitches closed the wounds
from her bite. Amazing, they didn’t seem to hurt at all, not even when they
were stitched at the hospital. Probably she had seen to that. “Oh Mark, why
weren’t you born about seventy years sooner? Then none of this would’ve
happened, and we would have been growing old together, perfectly happy.”
“If I have my way, we still can be. Now, tell
me how to find him.”
It embarrasses me to admit that I almost had
to borrow money from her, but it’s true. I was as much as broke, and I didn’t
have enough gas in the Chevy to get where I needed to be, which was
But, she gave me no gas money. Instead,
she gave me her car, a flawless black Mercedes, vintage 1985. “If someone sees
you,” she told me, obviously thinking a lot more clearly than I, “we can’t have
them identifying your car, can we?” That made perfect sense, of course. So I
had spent an hour taking the pistol (a very old Colt) apart and cleaning it
carefully, then I took it outside and tried it. It failed on one round, but the
second went off with a terrific report. Fifty-fifty was good enough odds when
facing a vampire, I figured, and maybe if more than one failed, I could just
keep squeezing off shots till one went true. Or so I hoped as I drove north on
37 toward my goal.
I love this road, which I’ve always
thought of as the Caver’s Highway. When I first came south from my home in
northwest
“He shouldn’t be hard to find,” Joanne had
assured me. “He claims to be out every night, usually drinking and dancing. He
doesn’t feed every night—he has some
sense of discretion, apparently—but he stays close to a food source.” She gave
me a couple of matchbooks. “He left these here. He still smokes, and never uses
lighters. He says matches look sexier.” She rolled her eyes. “The worst thing
is, he’s probably right. He spends enough time among those sorts of folk, he
ought to know.”
Those sorts of
folk.
There was a tone to her voice, not scornful, more piteous. I was almost one of
them, too…after the divorce, I’d done my share of bar-hopping before deciding
that the kind of woman I was apt to meet there wouldn’t be the sort I’d care to
spend any free time with. Call me closed-minded, but I would rather be alone
than be saddled with someone who wasn’t the best match for me. Once bitten, and
all that.
She had given me two matchbooks, both
bearing the names of nightclubs, but only one of them was open past
And Joanne had been right: he was not had
to find at all. The center of attention, she said. “He still has the magnetism
to him,” she told me, with a sigh tinged with regret and some longing. “I’m not
sure but it was the smell of him that attracted me.”
“Well, it was your smell that got my attention first,” I responded, sniffing her.
“If it’s something peculiar to vampires, I hope you can bottle it. I like it.”
At least she still had a sense of humor.
“Perhaps I should go take a long hot bath and save the water?”
“Oh, do that!”
“I think you’re smelling my homemade laundry
detergent. Anyway, he’ll probably have two or three women around him. Or men,
he doesn’t seem to mind either way.”
And he didn’t, either. His table was
loaded. Women on either side of him, men across from him. I couldn’t tell which
one—or ones, he might have more than
one—were his companions this particular night and which were the hangers-on.
They all looked alike to me…young, pretty, rosy-cheeked, full of vitality and
life. And, obviously, blood.
How easy was he to spot? Well, if you’re
looking for a vampire, it helps to know what one looks like, and by this time I
did, of course. Oh, he had his hair colored, but the eyes…those lupine orbs
were unmistakable. And yes, he was attractive…I might go so far as to say beautiful, with that same stunning
glamour that Joanne possessed.
At the moment, anyway. Maybe it was
something inherent to the breed, and maybe it would be gone the moment she was
freed. But that didn’t matter. I was committed now. This was it, my Rubicon had
been crossed. By the time the sun rose, one or more…perhaps all three of us,
would be dead.
It was almost four when he finally emerged
from Cloudia’s, a woman on each arm whom he summarily dismissed as he stepped
regally down the walk toward the parking lot. They would never know how close
they had come to the proverbial fate worse than death.
He was whistling as he walked—whistling!
And whistling, “I Ain’t Got Nobody”, of all things! It would've been almost
comic, if I hadn't been so grimly serious.
I rolled down the window as he strolled
by, unconcerned. “Toni?” I called softly.
He stopped, looked over at me. “Anton,” he
said in a lyrical voice. “No one’s called me Toni in years. Do I know you?”
“Oh, maybe,” I said, trying to sound
something other than the nervous wreck I was at that moment. “Maybe you do. Can
I give you a ride somewhere?”
He walked over, leaned down to the window.
“That would depend where we’re going,” he replied with a coy smile. “You’re a
little…older, than the usual man who approaches me. But you’re attractive, in
an earthy kind of way.”
I smiled, trying for cool but probably
achieving nothing closer than awkward. “Climb in,” I said. “You can leave your
car here. We can…go somewhere quiet.”
“I’d much rather drive my own, thanks,” he
declined. “Besides, I’ve seen this car before, and if I’m right, that means rather
bad news for one of us.”
“You’re right,” I said, showing him the
Colt. “Very bad news.”
“Oh my god!” he laughed. “What do you
know! Joanne finally found herself a lackey to come try and take me out! Well,
slave boy, you’ll be hard pressed to do it with that old cannon. It probably
hasn’t been fired since the
“And you’d be wrong.” I opened the door,
motioned with the barrel. “Get in. Unless you'd care to find out just how
effective this thing is right now.”
“You wouldn’t dare. Not here, not in
public.”
I smiled grimly. “No one knows me here.
The car is as non-descript as you can get. You ought to know, you bought it for
her. The plates came off a Gremlin I found abandoned along 37 north of
That had been Joanne’s idea. “Give him an
out,” she said. “He will fight you, but he won’t run. If he thinks he has a
chance of overwhelming you, he’ll take it. He loves a challenge.”
Challenge or no, he didn't have much
choice. "All right lackey," he sighed, climbing behind the wheel and
closing the door. "Where shall I take us? What do you wish to see as your
last vision of earth?"
"Well, if it's to be that, I'd like
to see the
"Fair enough."
"And put on your seatbelt."
He laughed. "But of course."
There was a purpose in driving to
He drove us right past the tunnels that
swept under the western end of the race track. "Here we are," he said
gaily. "Where shall we go then? Dawn is coming, you know, and I'm a bitch
when I'm burning from the inside out. Trust me, if you don't like me now, you'll
like me even less then."
"I don't have anything against
you," I told him quietly. "You are what you are, and you can't help
that. Why you keep doing it, knowing what you do, that part I don't
understand." I pointed behind what looked like an abandoned strip mall on
"You think I'm so evil, lackey,"
he said, "but you ignore the simple truth that Joanne does the same as I
do. And probably she did the same to
you." He nodded at the marks on my neck. "Did it occur to you that
you're acting under her influence?"
"That did cross my mind," I
admitted. Those gray eyes with their dancing flecks of blue…yes, it was very
possible, likely even, that they could've easily persuaded me to this sort of
act. And yet…"I don't think it's so, though. Besides, from the looks of
you, you're feeding pretty regularly. How often do you think she eats, Anton?"
"Is that so important? Even an attack
a few times every few years is still quite a tally over nearly a century. Have
you considered that, lackey?"
That was a valid point, and one I'd
considered. But she had also explained that a little went a long way, that she
had survived on animal blood as well, and that along with supporting her
financially he had often brought her the spoils of his own kills. Or
near-kills. "He shares," she'd told me, "and I give him that.
But what you must keep in mind is that if they live, then there's a fair chance
they become like us. He knows this too, and he doesn’t want too many of our
kind competing with him, so usually he kills what he eats…but slowly. Slowly.
He can make a body last."
Which meant that there were probably lots
of missing persons cases in the greater
"Shut it off," I said to him,
"and get out." He did, and I slid out as well.
"So this is to be it, is it,
lackey?" He sighed. "A shame. To corrupt a body like this…" He smiled
lasciviously. "You know, we're not far from my place." He tried to
lock his eyes with mine. "We could have a good time together, you and I. Even
at…her age…Joanne is a lovely lady,
to be sure, but I…I could show you things…teach
you things…and then, afterward…we could join together, and I could introduce
you to the crowd at Cloudia's. It is simply an amazing, place, lackey, and there are women—and me—there who would
make you forget Joanne, and right quickly at that…"
Quickly. As soon as the word came out of
his mouth he darted toward me, going for the pistol. Quickly, oh yes, he did
move quickly. But not as quickly as I did, stepping aside and squeezing the
trigger.
Click.
Nothing.
"Told you so, lackey," Anton
laughed, walking toward me slowly now, seemingly convinced that I was helpless.
"The bullets in that piece are at least sixty years old, and…"
…and still quite effective, half the time
at least. I squeezed the trigger again, this time unleashing a round that went
through his chest, knocking him backward.
"Son of a bitch," he gasped in astonishment…and, apparently, rage.
"That was a six hundred dollar silk shirt! I'll see you suffer for that,
lackey."
I think he was counting on me being
shocked that he was still alive. I won't say that I wasn't a little unnerved,
but I was well aware that a shot in the heart wouldn't kill him. "Don’t
bother getting up again," I told him as calmly as I could. "There is
as good a place as any to end it."
And now he was bewildered. Maybe it was
the fact the lackey had the upper hand and didn't appear to be frightened.
Maybe it was that someone had stood up to him. Or maybe he'd had a glimpse of
his mortality. I'm not sure which was truer. In any case, I leveled the weapon
at him again, taking careful aim at his head.
“My god,” he said quietly.
“You’ll see him soon enough,” I said. “Or
her. I hope they’re not as judgmental as you.”
It had to be quick. I could see the stain
of blood on his shirt shrinking. Soon he’d be capable of standing again,
standing and fighting.
“She’ll die, you know,” he said, his voice
trembling. “If I die, so will she. You know that, don’t you, lackey?”
“Better dead than undead,” I replied,
pulling back the hammer. “Better a lackey than lonely.”
And finally, he seemed to understand. He
closed his eyes. “Then…ask her, if you would…to forgive me.”
I already had, and I told him so: “She
forgave you a long time ago, Anton.”
He heard that, and he smiled. “Then I
could ask for nothing more.”
My next shot was true, and just that
quickly he was dead. More than dead enough. I stayed only long enough to make certain,
then I left. No one saw me go.
The next couple of hours, I don’t honestly
recall. I know that I drove from
I sat in the car for a moment staring at
the house, dreading what I might find inside. Then I decided it wouldn’t get
any better waiting, so I hesitantly climbed out of the car and tried the door.
It was locked, so I looked for the key beneath the rock…only to remember that
I’d used it the previous evening, and hadn’t replaced it. I swore colorfully,
figuring I really would have to break
in now, before deciding to check the front door first. Perhaps it would prove
easier to force.
I did not find easier entry, but I did
find something else…a note, tacked to the door.
It read:
My Mark,
I have gone out
to test if my new-found freedom is a reality.
If I am not back
when you return, look for me in the woods. You know where.
If you don’t find
me alive, know that I died with your name on my lips, spoken with
love,
your Joanne
The time was also noted, as
I walked into the woods, heading in the
direction of the dry stream bed and the cave entrance. It wasn’t very far, but
I couldn’t seem to move fast enough, eventually breaking into a sprint for the
last few yards to the opening in the woods and, inevitably, tripping over a
fallen log and tumbling headlong into the rocky dry-bed. When I came to my
senses, I sat up, looked around, found myself alone.
“Joanne?” I called, first softly, then
with increasing volume and urgency. “Joanne! Joanne!”
There was no answer.
I sat there, I don’t know how long,
listening to the wind sighing in the trees above me, and the faint sounds of
water flowing in the cave below, until finally I added my own sorrow to the
already melancholy atmosphere, crying bitterly for my loss. Yes, she was better
off now, surely she was…or did I really know that? What sort of torture had she
endured? Anton had spoken of burning from the inside out…was that what had
happened? Had she died a slow, agonizing death, burned from within, her body
finally turning to ash, now gone like so much dust?
My anguish knew no bounds. I know that
sounds melodramatic, but it’s truer than true. I had abruptly, and horribly,
lost the woman who, for so short a time, had seemed to be the one I’d looked
for all my life.
I cried for a long, long time…I cannot
even begin to guess how long.
Then I caught my second wind, and I cried
again, only louder, more painfully.
And finally I ran out of energy and just
sat.
What would I do? I couldn't go back to
that house in
Maybe…maybe it would be better for all
concerned if I just disappeared. Went somewhere, anywhere else, somewhere I
wouldn't be reminded of her
everywhere I looked.
But was there such a place? I laughed, but
a bitter, bitter laugh. Even the smell of vanilla would no longer be just a
scent. Clouds…snow, not long in the future it would snow…anything white, and I
would see her…
I took a deep breath. I had to collect
myself. She wouldn't want me to be acting so damned silly over her, certainly…maybe
I would just go back to the house, find a way in and locate something to take
to remember her by, perhaps there was a picture, something with her
handwriting, maybe something with her scent on it…
…and that got me started crying again.
I was still crying when I heard the noise
from below me. A scuffling sound, a splash from the cave stream. A sigh of
relief. And then, a soft cry of surprise.
"Mark?"
I looked down, and there she was, her face
illuminated from above by the sun…yes, the sun,
the glorious sun, streaming down through the crevice and kissing her ivory
skin, now marred somewhat by a streak of reddish-brown mud.
Mud and all, I decided that I had never
seen anything so lovely in my life.
"Mark? Are you crying?"
I took my hand, wiped my face, leaving
streaks similar to hers. But I couldn't find words to express my joy. All I
could manage was a gasping, "Are you…are you all right?"
"Right as rain." She squinted in
the light. "But…Mark?" She held up her hands.
I climbed down, stood next to her.
"Anything," I said imploringly.
"Anything. Just ask."
She gave me a wonderfully innocent look. "I
just want to know…where is this wonderful cave you were telling me about? I can't
seem to find it."
I hadn't expected that. "Which way
did you go?"
She motioned upstream. "That
way."
"Ah. The big cave is downstream."
She mused on that a moment, then nodded.
"Oh. Downstream. That way."
"And you shouldn't even be down here alone,"
I scolded gently, pointing to her single flashlight. "But I guess you can
do whatever you like. It's your cave."
"No, Mark," she murmured, barely
audible over the soft sounds of the cave. "Our cave."
The significance of what she'd said didn't
hit me at first. "Our cave?"
"Well, of course. We will be living
here together now, won't we? I'm sure you don't expect me to share that house
in
I was crying again, but now they were
happy tears.
"I love you, My Mark," she said,
stroking my face tenderly. And perhaps there was still some remnant of her
vampirism within her, for she said, reading my thoughts, "Nothing but
happy tears from now on?"
"For either of us," I agreed.
And it was so.
The next several months were, as I have
heard, a whirlwind, but in the most wonderful way. There was so much to do, so
much to do. The house had to be cleaned, of course, and that was a superhuman
task if ever there had been one. Would that we could've turned an army of
cleaners loose, but there was more at stake than just a dirty house.
Like, what was hidden in the walls: cash,
as in cold, hard cash, and lots of it, some of it worth a whole lot more than
its face value because of its age. "It wasn't as if I ever needed
money," Joanne explained as she pulled bundle after bundle from a dozen
different hiding places. "But he kept bringing it, and well, I decided
that maybe one day…perhaps it might come in handy." She smiled up at me
happily. "And so it has."
And so it has, beyond my wildest dreams. I
went to school full time till I finished my degree and now I’m working on a
Doctorate in Hydrology, which I think I will complete about the same time as we
finish surveying what we now call the Heaton Cave System, which has turned out
to be quite large, fifteen miles long as of last week. Trey Neary has led the
survey since I stepped away to help raise our children, and he still can’t
believe that he was scooped so thoroughly by me. But he has a lady friend of
his own, a caver, naturally, and probably we’ll be going to another wedding in
a year or two.
Which brings up two other points. First,
our wedding which was simple and short, vows spoken softly and sincerely at the
church just up the road from our home with a few cavers and…Zeb Heaton in
attendance. Yes, he and Joanne were reunited, as well a sister and brother
ought to be, and while he doesn’t understand how it is that she is so
marvelously well-preserved—it’s not exactly something we can explain—he is
nonetheless overjoyed to have her back in his life, and they are doing a lot of
catching up. We spent our honeymoon at
Then, our home life and our children. Joanne
made it clear from the beginning that she wanted to be first a wife, and then a
mother, with as many children as possible. Naturally, it wasn't to be all that simple…and without going into it in
too much detail, we tried to conceive for several years without much success.
Oh, the trying was certainly
enjoyable, but discouraging nonetheless. Not sure that there wasn’t something
genetic involved, we went ahead and put ourselves on the county adoption roll,
and when the opportunity to adopt a pair of twins came, we didn’t have to think
twice. Of course no soon did the papers come through that Joanne learned she
was pregnant…good times on top of good times!
And good times ever since. Jackson (for
Joanne’s father) and Judith (for my mother) are now seven, and Sunny—officially
Abigail Heaton Allyn—is three. She earned the nickname as much for her cheerful
disposition as her mane of bright blonde hair. All three are bright, happy,
and…normal. They know nothing of their parents' past, and it's as likely they
will never know.
To the present, then, and a cheery
Halloween in the basement…by choice now rather than morbid necessity. We have
just come in from trick-or-treating, and I must note that it is wonderful to
live in a town that eschews the suburban norm and has its trick-or-treating
done not only on Halloween proper, but after
dark, which, needless to say, is tres
cool, as Trey would remark. Where I grew up they stopped doing it years ago
after some church group complained the holiday glorified Satanism or some such
nonsense. But that's
So. The twins are sorting their candy on
the floor…it is pleasantly familiar, this act; my siblings and I did the same
after each mission, hopefully swapping what we didn't like for something more
palatable.
The recipe is my Grandmother's, via her
own mother and probably the prior generation as well. Remote as we are, the
aroma draws the kids like flies when they're cooking, and of course on the big
night we're awfully popular. There are no more soaped windows, needless to say.
Joanne still doesn't go out much, but she does enjoy handing out the treats at
the door, and she's locally well-known now. Well liked too, which is a big
improvement from not so long ago.
And now…we all sit around the television
set, on which is playing the original Universal version of Dracula. Yes, we still love it, in spite of our past…or perhaps
because of it.
Joanne—my
Joanne—catches my eye. She is staring with those dark, dark eyes of hers…yes, dark now, no longer gray. That was
apparently an artifact of her days of walking among the undead. They are a
brown so deep and thick as to be chocolate, dark chocolate…but still mixed with
those tiny pale-blue flecks of what must be mint. They are amazing. I look,
stare, see the mint bits swirl, just so…she catches me looking, lazily flutters
her eyelids seductively…and I can’t tell for sure if perhaps another remnant of
those days remains, because surely, she holds me in thrall. And I like it. And
later, when the children are in bed, perhaps we will work on creating another
little monster or two.
For now, Sunny is sprawled across us,
basking in the attention, and then she chirps: "Da, s'dere reely
bampize?"
I am speechless. What do I say, knowing
what I do? What do we say?
Joanne knows, though. "Yes, my Mark.
Do tell her." She smiles at me.
I look at those eyes, so trusting, so
loving. And I understand.
"No, dear," I say to my
daughter. "There's no such thing."
Sunny curls up, smiles, closes her eyes.
She is satisfied. Jackson and Judith are busy with their candy, and they are
just as content. And Joanne looks adoringly into my eyes, sighs, and lays her
head on my shoulder. She, too is content, as am I. Because as far as we're
concerned, there really is no such
thing…anymore.
Copyright © 2009 James David Reyome. All rights reserved.
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